The Khmer Kill: A Dox Short Story (Kindle Single) (3 page)

Dox smiled back. “Hey, as far as I’m concerned? This meeting never happened.”

“Indeed. Anyway, this is just what happens toward the end. Things get… ad-hoc. Seat-of-the-pants. You use whatever viable tools you still have, and for purposes they weren’t designed or intended for. Basically, you do what you have to so your own country doesn’t wind up like this one.”

Dox didn’t much care for Gant’s pessimism, though he suspected that was because he couldn’t much refute it. But none of that mattered. What was important was that Gant’s briefing had told him what he needed to know. So he should have just let it go. But the act of asking some questions made it hard to refrain from asking others.

“All right,” he said. “But why me? When I arrived at the airport, a guy in a customs uniform told me he could move me to the head of the immigration line for a five-dollar gratuity. I figure hell, if a customs official can be bribed for five dollars, you could probably have a real problem solved for maybe fifty. Which is a little less than I charge.”

“Your calculations are good,” Gant said. “But Sorm isn’t the kind of target who can be gotten to by a fifty-dollar street hood. He travels with a retinue of bodyguards, for one thing.”

“Then why not send in one of those fancy drones, like you said? Reaching out and touching someone with match-grade ammo, I don’t know, it seems so old-fashioned. Not that I mind, because I come from a long line of proud knuckle-draggers. But still.”

Gant leaned forward. “You know, there are quite a few otherwise bright people who think what we do is stupid or counterproductive because of the criticism it engenders. But really, you can’t legitimately criticize someone’s tactics if you don’t understand his objectives, don’t you think? Sometimes, our objective is to send a message, and criticism of our actions simply serves to amplify the desired message. Torture Bradley Manning? Quite a message to other would-be whistleblowers, don’t you think? And swallowing up people in the black hole of Guantanamo? A loud and clear message to everyone else we might detain and interrogate. And what about a child trafficker, halfway around the world, with nothing but a fine pink mist where a human cranium used to be? Think there’s a message there?”

“I reckon there is. And one Western Union wouldn’t be adequate to deliver.”

A long moment went by. Dox had been casually and reflexively checking his surroundings for as long as they’d been talking, and he was struck again that Gant hadn’t once done so. There was something about the way the guy carried himself, as though he was above having to take such pedestrian precautions. Dox had been in LA once when a gang turf war erupted. Dox had seen the warning signs and had taken cover behind a truck just before it all went down. The civilians in the area, a beat behind him, had cleared out the moment they realized what was going on, too. But one guy, in a suit and carrying a damn briefcase, had just strolled through the whole thing like it had nothing to do with him. And the hell of it was, he made it all the way without a scratch. Barrio dudes laying into each other with pipes and chains, and Mr. Upright Citizen is just moseying along, checking his watch and messing with his cell phone. For whatever reason, some people just seemed untouchable, and maybe Gant was one of them.

“Okay,” Gant said. “Is there anything else you need to know?”

“Well, I’m still a little concerned that you want to be right there when it happens. I wouldn’t exactly call that SOP.”

“Probably it’s not. But am I correct in thinking that’s more my problem than yours?”

“You’re not worried about witnesses tying you to this in some way?”

“At the risk of sounding immodest, I think I can safely say I have a talent for not being noticed. Or, if I’m noticed, for not being remembered. Or, if I’m remembered, for not being found.”

Dox had no trouble believing any of that. He couldn’t figure out what was the basis for the man’s confidence. Dox knew veterans of the shit who wouldn’t flinch at being midconversation with a man the instant he shuffled off this mortal coil courtesy of a long-range rifle shot to the brain, but every one of them was a hardened operator, with all the signs and weight that kind of experience came with. Gant was so casual about things, he seemed like a posturing first-timer. And yet Dox’s buddy had assured him the man was anything but. He wondered what it would be like to be one of these people. Maybe there was just a kind of royalty in the world, people with a certain rank or privileges that made them carry themselves like they were above it all. He didn’t know.

“All right then, like you say, it’s your risk. But unless you’re planning on wearing a raincoat on the day in question, we might want to devise some special signal I can give you so you can lean away at the critical moment. It’d save you a story at the dry cleaner’s about how you cut yourself shaving.”

Gant chuckled. “That sounds sensible. Well, I suppose you could always just call me on my mobile. In fact, I think that would work well. I could confirm the target for you one last time on the phone, and it would give me an excuse to step out of the way at the ‘critical moment,’ as you say.”

“All right, if that’s how you want to do it.”

“Now, I imagine you weren’t able to travel here with your own equipment. What else do you need from me?”

“I wasn’t and it depends. What kind of distances are we talking about?”

Dox was expecting Gant to ask why, in which case Dox would have to explain that equipment error that would be meaningless at a quarter mile could mean a missed shot at farther out. And that therefore, if Dox was going to have to drop this Sorm character at extreme distance, it would help to have precision hardware, meaning probably not what was readily available in their current environs.

But instead, Gant just said, “I would say, no farther than five hundred yards. Probably less.”

Dox was dubious. “Five hundred yards? Shit, you could have just hired someone to throw a rock at him from that close. Why me?”

“You have a reputation for reliability and discretion. Forgive my candor, but should the worst happen, we can’t afford the kind of blowback we had in Pakistan with Ray Davis. We need someone maximally deniable.”

Davis was a CIA contractor who was imprisoned in Pakistan after shooting to death a couple of locals. It had turned into a major hairball and even the president wound up getting pulled into it. So it made sense they would want someone they could hang out to dry if things went sideways. Dox didn’t have a problem with that; in fact, he was used to assuming the risk of a shitstorm and had already factored it into his price for the job.

“Day or night?” he said.

“Night.”

“All right, a night shot at five hundred yards or closer, I can get by without anything too fancy. Still, I’m tempted to ask for an XM2010 ESR, but I reckon that would be a little too recognizably made-in-the-USA. Should the worst happen and all that.”

“Correct, the XM2010 is too new and too associated with the US military. What about its predecessor, the M24? Combat-proven and reassuringly widespread.”

Well, old Gant knew his hardware, it seemed. And the M24 was as comfortable to Dox as old pair of perfectly sprung boots. But as sensible as Gant’s reasoning might have been, he didn’t like that the man was proposing a bolt-action weapon. Other things being equal, if the shit hit the fan, Dox preferred a semi-automatic.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he said, “I’d prefer an M110.”

“Still a little too new and a little too associated with Uncle Sam. What about the SR-25? The Thai Army has it, and so do the militaries of quite a few other nations, so it’s conveniently deniable.”

Dox would have preferred to have the weapon he chose rather than the one Gant proposed, but in his experience, there was nothing to complain about with the SR-25. “All right. With the 20-round magazine, the Leupold Mark 4, an AN/PVS-14 night scope, and sound suppressor, naturally. Basically, the MK-11 configuration. Oh, and a hundred rounds of match-grade ammunition. I’ll want to play around with it beforehand.”

Gant nodded. “I’ll have the equipment by tomorrow morning. I’ll contact you on the secure site and let you know where you can pick it up. Tomorrow night is Sorm’s appointment in Samarra—will that give you time to zero the rifle and make any other preparations you need?”

Dox understood the allusion to John O’Hara’s novel. But he doubted Gant would have expected that, which meant the man intended the reference to be supercilious. Hell, he probably didn’t think Dox knew what supercilious meant, either.

He broke out in a good ol’ boy grin. “Tomorrow night ought to be fine.”

• • •

That night, lying in bed with Chantrea, clothed as usual, he was thinking of Sorm, and of how much he didn’t know about Cambodia. How much maybe he didn’t want to know.

“May I ask you something personal?” he said.

She looked at him, her expression half-veiled in shadow, and nodded.

“When you’re hanging around in a bar, like you were when we met. If you go home with someone… nobody’s… I mean, nobody’s coercing you to do that, are they? Forcing you, I mean. It’s your choice?”

She shook her head slowly. “Nobody’s forcing me.”

He wondered if her distinction had been deliberate—that just because no one was forcing her didn’t mean she had a real choice.

He looked at her. Goddamn, she was pretty. The flat Khmer nose and cheekbones. A small mouth and beautifully full lips. And those big, dark eyes. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep doing this without at least really kissing her. But if he kissed her, he didn’t know how he’d stop.

“You know, in general, I don’t judge or begrudge how people earn a living. The truth is, I’ve done some questionable things myself. But I don’t… I don’t know Cambodia as well as I’d like. I’ve read about some of what goes on here, and I don’t want to contribute to it.”

She paused, maybe trying to divine his meaning. “Are you talking about sex slavery?”

He was glad she was being so frank, and felt foolish for his obliqueness. “That’s right.”

She nodded. “It’s a terrible problem. There are thirty-thousand child prostitutes in Cambodia.”

“I know, I’ve read some about it. Poverty, culture, porous borders, the aftermath of war… it’s so pervasive, I don’t see what can be done.”

“This is what I’m going to do with my degree. Help integrate rescued girls back into society.”

“You? But…”

She looked away. “I don’t think it will hurt my work to have some direct experience with the lives of sex workers.”

Dox didn’t say anything. He didn’t like thinking of her as a sex worker. And he didn’t like thinking there could be any connection at all between the kind of low-key freelance work Chantrea might do part-time of her own volition and what children were forced to do by traffickers.

“Psychological counseling,” she went on, shaking her head. “I guess it’s not much. But we have to do what we can, yes? Even if it’s just a little.”

He didn’t answer. He felt confused. It was one thing to know about some of Cambodia’s hidden horrors, but now it was like he was brushing up against them, things he could sense but not quite see. And she’d made him feel small about saying nothing could be done. She was right, she was doing something.

She said, “Are you trying to ask… if I wanted to come back from the bar with you? If I want to be here with you now?”

Her question surprised him, though upon reflection it actually made perfect sense. “Well, actually, I’m not sure. Did you? Do you?”

“You mean, would I keep seeing you if you didn’t keep giving me money?”

“I guess that’s one way of clarifying things, yeah.”

“Why don’t you stop, then, and see what happens?”

He thought about that. She was sweet and smart and agreeable. And so tasty-looking. But he couldn’t afford to fall in love with some university student. Not while he was in the life, anyway. Maybe one day, but not now.

“All right,” she said into the silence. “You don’t seem to be using the money to buy the obvious thing. So maybe you’re using it to buy something else?”

He suddenly had the feeling her psychology degree was going to be entirely redundant. “I don’t know. What would that be?”

“You really don’t know?”

Was he being an asshole? Making her play guessing games because he didn’t want to be forthright himself?

“Maybe I do. If I give you money, that’s our context. I don’t have to feel I owe you anything else.”

“And if you made love to me, you would. Even if you were paying me.”

The frank way she said it both aroused and embarrassed him. He was glad he wasn’t pressed against her. And that in the dim light she couldn’t see the red he felt creeping into his face.

“I like you, Chantrea,” he said. “I guess you can tell that. And I guess that’s the problem.”

“Why is it a problem?”

“Because it’s not what I came here to do. I’m just here on business, and I want to keep things on a business level. Which, I’ll admit, I initially thought I was doing with you. But… I don’t know. Like I said, I like you. And I wasn’t sure what you wanted, or what you expected.”

“You mean you were afraid that if we made love, it wouldn’t be just business, even if you were giving me money?”

“That’s right.”

“So it wasn’t just about making me do something I didn’t really want to.”

Damn, not just smart, but relentless. “No. Now that we’re talking about it, not just that.”

She looked away for a moment, then back to him. “I can’t say I think you’re wrong about any of it.”

“I’m not sure that’s exactly a comfort, under the circumstances.”

“You’re an honest man, Dox.”

That hurt. “Actually, no, I’m not.”

“You are about the things that count. And you’re right. I like you a lot. If you make love to me, I’ll probably get attached to you.”

He couldn’t look at her. He felt like he’d been exposed as selfish and manipulative, and a hypocrite, too. And he was also ashamed at how Nessie had swelled at the way she’d put it. Not, “if you were to make love to me, I would get attached.” No, it wasn’t hypothetical. It was a straight-up if/then proposition, and entirely up to him, too.